(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to automatic control systems, and more particular to a forward tracking system and a related method where a moving carrier follows a user at a constant distance behind as the user moves or turns.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Robots have already been widely applied in various industries and disciplines such as military operations, rescue missions, electronic industry, automobile industry, etc., to replace or to assist human operators in tasks requiring high precision or involving significant hazard.
As technology advances, robots are also applied to human daily lives such as the floor automatic vacuum cleaner or the wired or wireless automatic carrier for transporting stuffs. For the latter, usually it has to be operated in a pre-determined environment, and usually a path is pre-arranged. The automatic carrier detects the path and then follows the path to move around. Therefore, this kind of the moving carrier has limited applicability.
On the other hand, automatic carriers that can follow people to move around are also developed. These automatic carriers usually employ a supersonic detector to detect distance so as to maintain a constant distance as the carriers follow the users. For these automatic carriers, the users usually can only move straight ahead. If the users turn left or right, the automatic carriers usually cannot respond in time and as such fail to follow up.